Dispatches From the Outlaw Ocean: The Last Untamed Frontier

The high seas are a lawless frontier where crimes such as murder, slavery, and environmental destruction are often met with impunity and overlooked by the media. But the ocean is also a place of discovery and reinvention, offering freedom from the constraints of society. This 10-part short film series stems from over a decade of reporting by Ian Urbina exploring crime on the high seas. The series chronicles a gritty cast of characters including traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, shackled slaves and vigilante conservationists.

13min

Our Oceans are running out of fish. As stocks disappear, boats are having to travel farther offshore to fulfill their quotas, and margins for profit become razor-thin. As a result, captains increasingly turn to trafficked, debt-bonded, and forced labor to make ends meet. A global scourge, sea slavery is something most people do not realize exists. In this episode, Ian Urbina takes viewers onboard roach and rat-infested ships on the South China Sea to explore how overfishing has given rise to trans-shipment, fish laundering, and a prevalence of abuse that companies and governments have a tough time tracking or countering.

12min

The Ocean has long been a metaphor for freedom – the ultimate escape from governments and other people. This episode takes us off the coast of England aboard Sealand, a rogue micronation founded by a quixotic adventurer on an abandoned anti-aircraft platform in 1967. From its bowels, we will explore the fantastical world of sea-bound libertarians and utopian architects: renegades seeking to evade the laws of the land by building new worlds in international water and visionaries who believe that the ocean can provide the ultimate solution to the survival of our species.

12min

Accidental oil spills make big news. But every 3 years ships intentionally dump more oil than the Exxon Valdez and BP spills combined. This episode investigates how some luxury cruise ships routinely use Magic Pipes to get rid of toxic waste below the water line, and how they rarely get caught. We also take a broader look at the history of dumping at sea, the scourge of plastic pollution and the sobering ecological consequences of environmental crimes that have only recently come into scientific focus.

10min

The deep ocean floor is our planet’s final frontier. It is also the most hostile environment on Earth. Scientists are yet to discover what lives in its profound ecosystems, but governments and corporations, driven by the green economy, are already tussling over its riches. Beyond regulation and independent oversight, a gold rush like no other has begun. In this episode Ian Urbina joins Greenpeace in their race against time to locate and protect a fragile coral reef near the mouth of the Amazon River before government-approved drilling begins

14min

Gambia, like many of its West African neighbors, has embraced the lucrative production of fishmeal. But the booming aquaculture industry, widely hailed by conservationists as the best hope for slowing ocean depletion, is polluting waters, decimating fish stocks, and threatening the lives of millions worldwide. In this episode Ian Urbina will investigate the impact of fishmeal factories and foreign trawlers in West Africa, exposing how a third of all marine life pulled from the sea ends up ground up to feed farmed fish and why solutions meant to combat ocean depletion could be accelerating the problem.

14min

It is estimated that over 100 dead bodies wash up on Japan’s shores each year. Almost all of them are North Korean fishermen. In partnership with Global Fishing Watch, and with the help of revolutionary satellite tracking technology, Ian Urbina investigates what links the mysterious case of the North Korean ghost boats to a plummeting squid population in the East Japanese Sea, and exposes the largest case of illegal fishing in maritime history, perpetrated by the Chinese ‘Dark Fleet’.

13min

A woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy is determined by which side of a state or country’s border she stands on. For over 20 years, one woman has taken advantage of the legal loophole provided by the lawlessness of international waters to administer abortions to women otherwise left without options. Ian Urbina joins Dr Rebecca Gomperts aboard the Adelaide to witness how she uses the outlaw ocean to change lives.

10min

The South China Seas are home to the most hotly contested waters on Earth and Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago, is virtually impossible to police. For decades, its sprawling waters have been the playground for illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing. When the country began cracking down on trespassers, arresting foreign crew and blowing up their boats, its tactics were hailed as effective, but the controversy provoked the ire of many. In this episode we accompany Ian on a routine maritime border patrol which rapidly takes a turn for the worse.

11min

In international waters between the African and European coasts, an almost daily battle occurs. To stem the flow of migrants, the EU has created a shadow immigration system that captures migrants before they reach the high seas and sends them back to Libyan detention centers run by militia. This film, shot aboard a Médecins Sans Frontières ship, reports on the desperate race between humanitarian NGOs and the Libyan Coast Guard to reach the overflowing migrant ships in the Mediterranean. Whoever wins, determines the fate of the passengers within.

15min